Showing posts with label fire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fire. Show all posts

Friday, October 29, 2010

Where there's smoke...


Here we go again... I can't believe how many fires we've had in just a couple of months. This one's the closest one yet to our house. People just five blocks away have been evacuated. So far, we're still fine and un-evacuated. The air quality is horrible, and since my respiratory system suffered so much in India, I seem to be extra sensitive to the smoke and ash in the air now.

That's The Husband's photo. That park is two blocks from us and that's when the first smoke started pouring over the mountains (the mountains start six blocks from our house).

Send us some good luck like we had last time to remain safe and not have to evacuate!

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I thought you might like to see Lynx's and Miss Lemon's lovely cataloons:






In the state of Bihar, India.

More art on my website: jalapfaff.com

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Trip delayed, life drawing, and fire


Well. Trip has been postponed 'till the 12th or 13th. So I got one more life drawing session in tonight. Posted in reverse order tonight, just for kicks: top one was 1 hour, the one below was 20 minutes, and then the warm-up sketches. (Posted in reverse, but drawn in the normal order.) 18" x 24" paper.

It's been a harsh couple of days, as there's a big fire (7000+ acres) raging just a ten minute drive from here. They're calling it the Fourmile Fire, because it started in Fourmile Canyon. I assumed it was a wildfire--it hasn't rained for a few weeks--but supposedly a vehicle hit a propane tank.

I'm grateful we haven't had to evacuate or lose anything. When I was 16, our house burned down and it was the kind of traumatic event that never leaves you. I've had a real fire phobia since then. (Not such a terrible phobia to have, I suppose. I do have other phobias that are less useful.) The air here is terrible, full of smoke and it's "snowing" ash. Just breathing feels really uncomfortable. Not sure why my lungs are taking this harder than, say, The Husband's. I'm coughing a lot. Maybe it's because my breathing apparatus has already been partly taken down by allergies. The combination is pretty nasty.

One thing that feels odd is that a few years ago, The Husband and I almost bought a house right where the fire is now. Apparently, so far, over 90 known structures (houses and other buildings) have been destroyed. I can't help but wonder if that particular house is suddenly gone. Amazingly, no one has been injured during all this, so far as I've heard.






And now for some comic relief...
The Husband decided to try to fix the leaky pipes under the kitchen sink. It wasn't funny to me (though it's okay with me if you laugh) that we couldn't use the sink for two days and there were parts strewn everywhere and it was extremely obnoxious of The Husband not to listen to me and call an actual plumber, even when it became apparent that we really needed one and he instead made four separate trips to the hardware store...

But the gem in all this chaos was that The Husband found an Assistant Plumber, albeit a little guy, wearing his spotless white coveralls.




And a video of the plumbing action, below (remember that Rumi is deaf, so his hearing is not being hurt even though it looks bad):


More art on my website: jalapfaff.com


Thursday, January 8, 2009

Exciting evening


Well, in spite of the excitement (and fear) of a large wildfire burning all day (and still burning as I write this) just a couple of miles north of my Boulder, Colorado neighborhood, nevertheless, artistic-type things got done today: I went to alla prima class and painted a lovely young woman's portrait (to be posted on my next post), and photographed last night's still life: this Satsuma tangerine. Oh, and washed a whooooole lot of brushes...ugh.

More art on my website: jalapfaff.com